Good morning. Thank you for having me and
thank you for hosting one of our Listening and
Learning events. We embarked on this tour to
hear from people in classrooms and schools—people
who are facing educational challenges and finding
solutions.

I've now been to 22 states and dozens of communities.
I've met with hundreds of teachers and principals,
education support staff, students, parents,
superintendents, college professors, higher education
administrators, and community leaders.

Everyone I spoke with understands that the status quo
is not good enough. They want to get better—they need
to get better—and they're willing to work even harder.
They just want to be part of the process and they want
their voices to be heard.

So I look forward today to hearing your voices—hearing
what you have to say—hearing your ideas for improving
American education. I encourage you to think boldly
and courageously—to challenge me, challenge
yourselves, and challenge each other.

But we must be willing to do more than talk. We all
must be willing to change. As I said recently, education
reform isn't a table around which we all talk. It's a
moving train and we all need to get on board.

I have had some compelling conversations with the
NEA (National Education Association) leadership and
many of your members. I'm convinced that if everyone
is on board this train, it will gain enough speed,
momentum, and direction to take public education to a
new and better place.

In recent weeks, I have given a series of speeches about
the four core reforms embodied in the Recovery Act
leading up to the release of $5 billion in competitive
grants.

The first speech was about creating data systems that follow the progress of students from pre–K through
college so teachers can better meet the needs of
students and we can help identify teachers who are
doing well or who are struggling.

The second speech was about adopting higher standards
and creating high-quality assessments. I want to thank
you for your support of higher standards. That's the
kind of leadership we need on a whole range of issues.

The third speech was about turning around our most
troubled schools. We proposed several models and
invited everyone to be part of the solution: unions,
charters, nonprofits, for–profits, universities, states,
and districts.

I also challenged the audience of charter school
operators and authorizers to get much more serious
about accountability. They must not protect third–rate
charters. Those schools need to close. Charter schools
are public schools and they should be held to the same
standards as everyone else.

Today is the last of my four speeches, and the focus
today is on the quality of the education workforce—
teachers, principals, and education support professionals.
I want to acknowledge some of the good things that we
have done and talk about some of the things we haven't
done.

I came here today to challenge you to think differently
about the role of unions in public education because,
when thousands of schools are chronically failing and
millions of children are dropping out each year, we all
must think differently.

It's not enough to focus only on issues like job security,
tenure, compensation, and evaluation. You must become
full partners and leaders in education reform. You and I
must be willing to change.

I know we won't all agree on everything—but I'm
confident there will be more we agree with than not.
It starts with our shared values.

We believe it is our moral obligation to give children the
very best education possible. We believe every child can
learn and every school can succeed. We believe teaching
is a profession and good teachers and principals are
essential to success.

Unlike many of you, my values and views on education
were not shaped in the front of a classroom. In 1961,
my mother began an after-school, inner-city tutoring
program on the South Side of Chicago and raised my
brother, sister, and me as a part of her program.

That daily experience was an absolutely formative
one for all three of us and we all tried to follow in her
footsteps in various ways. It was work filled both with
great heartbreak and also amazing triumph.

We experienced our share of early, violent deaths
because of the community's chaos, and those
experiences shape you and frankly scar you in ways that
to this day are difficult to talk about.

But from the group of friends I grew up studying with
and playing ball with, from one street corner at 46th
and Greenwood, emerged literally a brain surgeon, a
Hollywood movie star, one of my top administrators
at the Chicago Public Schools, and one of IBM's
international corporate leaders.

How did this happen? Because these children, despite
tremendous poverty, despite staggering neighborhood
violence, despite challenges at home, had my
mother and others in their lives who gave them real
opportunities, real support and guidance over the years,
and had the highest expectations for them. And because
of that opportunity, their gifts and their talents, and
their fierce desire to succeed, blossomed.

I came here today to challenge you to
think differently about the role of unions
in public education because, when
thousands of schools are chronically
failing and millions of children are
dropping out each year, we all must
think differently.

What I learned as a little boy, what continues to
motivate my mother today 48 years after she began her
work, are the same two values that motivate all of you.

It is a fundamental, unalterable belief that every child
can learn, and a fundamental understanding of the
tremendous urgency of our work. Simply put, we cannot
wait because our children cannot wait.

I've met a thousand educators like my mother in
schools all across America. I've seen them on an Indian
reservation in Montana, in a West Virginia middle
school, at a high school in Detroit, and a charter school
in Newark.

All of us remember an educator or coach who changed
our life. It stays with us forever. It sustains us, guides
us, and inspires us. They're the ones who commit those
everyday acts of kindness and love and never ask for
anything in return. They counsel troubled teens, take
phone calls at night, and reach into their pockets for
lunch money for children who are too ashamed to ask.

I've seen how much these educators want to be valued
for their work and honored for what they are: dedicated,
professional, compassionate, serious, and responsible.
These are the qualities of a great educator and we have
millions of them all across America.

My next experience was with the I Have a Dream
foundation, where we adopted a class of students and
agreed to send them to college if they stayed in school.
The previous class had a 67 percent dropout rate while
we had an 87 percent graduation rate.

After that, I helped start a small new traditional
neighborhood public school, the Ariel Academy. It
wasn't a charter. It had union teachers and today it is one
of the highest-performing public schools in Chicago—
even though all of the kids come from poverty.

Finally, I spent seven years running the Chicago Public
Schools, where I learned other important lessons. We
set up 150 community schools open 12 hours a day and
offering classes to adults and students.

We paid teachers to work extra hours and many of them
took on that responsibility because they were committed
to the school's success. Schools must support the social
and emotional needs of students and engage the whole
family.

We also increased the number of National Board
Certified teachers in Chicago to about 1,200—from
about a dozen when I started. We partnered with the
union and with the Chicago Public Education Fund,
which is a group of business leaders. Together we grew
NBC teachers faster than anywhere else in the nation.

I am a big believer in this program, but let's also
be honest: school systems pay teachers billions of
dollars more each year for earning PD (professional
development) credentials that do very little to improve
the quality of teaching.

At the same time, many schools give nothing at all to
the teachers who go the extra mile and make all the
difference in students' lives. Excellence matters and we
should honor it—fairly, transparently, and on terms
teachers can embrace.

The president and I have both said repeatedly that we
are not going to impose reform but rather work with
teachers, principals, and unions to find what works. And
that is what we did in Chicago. We enlisted the help of
24 of the best teachers in the system to design a pilot
performance compensation system. We also sat down
with the union and bargained it out.

It was based on classroom observation, whole school
performance, and individual classroom performance,
measured in part by growth in student learning. The
rewards and incentives for good performance went
to every adult in the school, including custodians and
cafeteria workers, and not to just the individual teachers.

Where you see high–performing schools, it's the
culture—every adult taking responsibility and creating a
culture of high expectations.

We're asking Congress for more money to develop
compensation programs “with” you and “for” you–not
“to” you—programs that will put money in the pockets
of your teachers and support personnel by recognizing
and rewarding excellence.

So I begin our conversation today around some
important areas of agreement: Excellence in teaching,
good professional development, schools open longer
hours, and a shared responsibility for student success
among all the adults in the school building.

But the president and I want to go further. I want to
describe some tough challenges and ask you how we can
work together to meet them. Let's start by talking about
underperforming schools.

We don't need a study to tell us that chronically
underperforming schools do not have the best principals
and teachers. Experience tells us that failing schools
usually have poor leadership, and poor leadership usually
drives away good teachers.

Now often we try replacing the leadership, and
sometimes that works. We need to invest much more
in principal leadership. We need to recruit and train the
very best people possible because the job is hard and the
cost of failure is too high.

Principals run multimillion dollar budgets, they hire,
train, and manage scores of people, and the best of
them are also instructional leaders who are trained in
classroom observation. It's a lot to ask of anyone, and we
need 95,000 of them in America.

Great principals lead talented instructional teams that
drive student performance and close achievement gaps.
They deserve to be recognized and rewarded. But if
they're not up to the job, they need to go.

Similarly, in struggling schools we have tried boosting
support for teaching staff and making other changes
around curriculum, school day, etc., and sometimes it
has worked. I always favor more support, collaboration,
mentoring, and time on task.

But sometimes, despite our best efforts, these methods
don't work. Today, America has about 5,000 schools that
continue to underperform year after year, despite our
best efforts.

Two thousand high schools produce half of the
dropouts in the country. Their kids are years behind
grade. They are perpetuating poverty and social failure.
When it comes to these schools, we need to think
differently. We need the courage to change.

We need to go into a room—states, districts, unions,
administrators, foundations, think tanks, charters,
nonprofits, parents, and elected officials—lock the door,
throw out the rule books, and start with a clean slate.

We need to be open and honest about the challenges
and the barriers. If we agree that children need more
time, then we must give it to them. If we agree that
teachers need more support, then we must give it to
them.

But if we agree that the adults in these schools are
failing these children, then we have to find the right
people and we can't let our rules and regulations get
in the way. Children have only one chance to get an
education.

It's also not about charters or unions. Chicago has
turnaround schools led by a businessman who uses
union teachers and he's getting great results. So does
Green Dot in Los Angeles.

But Mastery Charters in Philadelphia is a different
turnaround model and we need that as well. There is so
much urgency and so much need in underperforming
schools that we can't impede successful models like
these, regardless of governance structure.

The NEA has an honest and passionate leader in
Dennis Van Roekel. He shares our sense of urgency. He
has told me personally that he'll walk into any room
with anyone to talk about how to turn schools around.

And we can't continue to blame each other or blame the
system. We are the system and it is up to us—you and
me—to change it. So let's talk about that.

We created seniority rules that protect teachers from
arbitrary and capricious management, and that's a
good goal. But sometimes those rules place teachers in
schools and communities where they won't succeed, and
that's wrong.

We created tenure rules to make sure that a struggling
teacher gets a fair opportunity to improve, and that's a
good goal. But when an ineffective teacher gets a chance
to improve and doesn't—and when the tenure system
keeps that teacher in the classroom anyway—then the
system is protecting jobs rather than children. That's not
a good thing. We need to work together to change that.

I told the charter schools they need to police themselves
or their progress will be stalled. I told the school boards
that if they can't improve student achievement, they
have a moral obligation to consider mayoral control.

And I'm telling you as well that, when inflexible
seniority and rigid tenure rules that we designed put
adults ahead of children, then we are not only putting
kids at risk, we're also putting the entire education
system at risk. We're inviting the attack of parents and
the public, and that is not good for any of us.

I believe that teacher unions are at a crossroads. These
policies were created over the past century to protect the
rights of teachers, but they have produced an industrial
factory model of education that treats all teachers like
interchangeable widgets.

A recent report from the New Teacher Project found
that almost all teachers are rated the same. Who in
their right mind really believes that? We need to work
together to change this.

Now, let's talk about data. I understand that word can
make people nervous, but I see data first and foremost as
a barometer. It tells us what is happening. Used properly,
it can help teachers better understand the needs of their
students. Too often, teachers don't have good data to
inform instruction and help raise student achievement.

Data can also help identify and support teachers who
are struggling. And it can help evaluate them. The
problem is that some states prohibit linking student
achievement and teacher effectiveness.

I understand that tests are far from perfect and that it is
unfair to reduce the complex, nuanced work of teaching
to a simple multiple choice exam. Test scores alone
should never drive evaluation, compensation, or tenure
decisions. That would never make sense. But to remove
student achievement entirely from evaluation is illogical
and indefensible.

Our challenge is to make sure every
child in America is learning from an
effective teacher—no matter what
it takes. So today, I ask you to join
President Obama and me in a new
commitment to results that recognizes
and rewards success in the classroom
and is rooted in our common obligation
to children.

It's time we all admit that just as our testing system is
deeply flawed, so is our teacher evaluation system, and
the losers are not just the children. When great teachers
are unrecognized and unrewarded, when struggling
teachers are unsupported, and when failing teachers are
unaddressed the teaching profession is damaged.

We need to work together to fix this and I will meet
you more than halfway. I will demand the same of every
principal, administrator, school board member, elected
official, and parent. I ask only the same of you that I ask
of myself and others.

The NEA has long history of reform on issues of health
care, child advocacy, civil rights, and disabilities rights.
And I don't begin to suggest that all teachers and
unions are standing in the way of reform. I know many
of your members and affiliates have been working on
these issues. In Illinois, for example, the IEA (Illinois
Education Association) has led a 20-year effort to
build labor–management partnerships around school
improvement.

One of the leaders of that effort, Jo Anderson, has
joined our team. He's here today and I thank him for his
work.

I also want to acknowledge my general counsel Charlie
Rose, who was our labor lawyer in Illinois. Charlie
told me years ago that the key to making progress on
education reform begins with respect for the labormanagement
relationship.

I believe that and I salute union–management
partnerships all across America that are working
together to develop better hiring, compensation,
evaluation, and turnaround strategies. But we need to
move faster and we need to go further.

America's teachers are yearning to be partners in reform
and change. They want teaching to be a respected
profession that has high standards for performance,
rewards excellence, provides opportunities for
advancement, and promotes real collaboration.

They are tired of being demonized, blamed, and
disrespected. They want to get on the train. Let me
share a powerful quote from your former president,
Mary Hatwood Futrell:

The education reform movement demands not
only that we seize the opportunity, but that we
embrace the responsibility that is ours. You and
I must provide the leadership … and share this
responsibility with every parent and citizen who
is concerned about safeguarding the sanctity and
purpose of public education for all.

Taking her words to heart, our challenge is to make
sure every child in America is learning from an effective
teacher—no matter what it takes. So today, I ask you to
join President Obama and me in a new commitment
to results that recognizes and rewards success in the
classroom and is rooted in our common obligation
to children.

You've heard my voice, and I appreciate that. Now I
want to hear your voices. I began my remarks with a
personal story. I just want to close with one more.

Dr. Martin Luther King came to the West Side of
Chicago in 1966 to protest housing discrimination.
His powerful and inspiring message brought billions of
dollars into that community for housing, job-training,
and community development.

But when I took over the public schools in Chicago 35
years later, the children of North Lawndale were still
desperately poor. You have to ask yourself why, after so
much money and time, nothing had changed.

It's because they forgot to invest in the one thing with
the power to transform lives. They forgot education.
They put all of that money into bricks and mortar and
social programs, but they forgot to give the people the
skills they need to help themselves.

President Obama learned that lesson and that's why
the Recovery Act invests more than $100 billion in
education. I want to thank NEA for your support. That
money is going into our classrooms to keep teachers
teaching and kids learning so we can educate our way to
a better economy.

The president understands that the nation that outteaches
us today will out–compete us tomorrow. He
understands that education is the foundation of our
economic strategy and the only sure path to long-term
economic strength.

That's why he wants America to produce the highest
percentage of college graduates by the end of the next
decade. This is our moon shot. This is our call to action.

It is an economic imperative and a moral imperative.
This is the civil rights issue of our generation. The
fight for a quality education is about so much more
than education. It's a fight for social justice. And he's
counting on you to lead that fight.

There is simply no more important work in our society
than education. The president understands that, parents
understand that, America understands that. Now
we—all of us together—must act on that understanding
and move forward.